Dead Ends
by Dear Aunt Elladora
Summary: Remus tries to reason out Sirius's physce. [Blackfic, slashfree]


He finds him hunched over in an alleyway, his silken locks all torn through by his thin, olive-colored fingers. His face is hidden by the hairs, his expression hidden from Remus. He has no idea where this hiding man has been. By the looks of it, he needs to talk about it:get it off his chest.Andso Remus approaches him with upmost caution, and without announcing his arrival, the man speaks.

"She told me I was dead to her, not there," tears edge the silver of his eyes as he raises them to his friend.

Remus moves forward to comfort him, suspecting that he needs it, and suddenly Sirius reels back. Something unexplainable is in his expression though Remus knows all nine hundred twenty-four of his ever-changing expressions.

"D'you know what I told her?" He rasps, tears and happiness and anger, a jumble of mismatched emotions. Remus wonders, can one feel this way? Sirius can, if anyone can do something so mixed, it'd be Sirius. It's like he's on some emotional high, but tangled in everything. The paths he's been taking aren't leading him anywhere anymore and he's realized it a dime too late.

"That the dead never stop haunting us! And I swear, Remus, I swear to God on Merlin over Salazar's grave and atop of the head of James's tombstone, I will _never _stop haunting her."

He's frightening, Sirius is. It's like all those times before they'd ever spoken humanely, back when he was all Black and none Sirius. Back when Padfoot wasn't even a consideration, when Sirius would have cursed his house and those who belonged to it before breakfast in swift, condescending tones. Back when blood ran thicker than water, thicker than pain, honesty, fairness, humanity. Back when blood was the balance and Black was best and -- Remus doesn't like to think about those times.

Because Sirius's pure blood pulsed into a heart that was better than the rest. His bright red, emotionally fired heart nourished the icy blood to something other than snobbish pride and ran to tiny capilliaries in hisbrain that allowed him to rationalize all he was doing wrong. And you know the story from here, all know the story from here, everyone in Hogwarts heard the rumors.

But as Sirius retells this story of his quick wit in his half-crazed state, one of Remus's worst fears bathes him in its darkness. Padfoot has grown into this fine being, found his niche of friends and stuck with them, kept a level head -- well, attempted to, at least. He's matured and aged and tried so very hard to live for all those years he was stifled. But there's something lingering there, and Sirius's recent words are beyond the truth - the dead never stop haunting us.

Maybe what Padfoot has failed to realize, though, is that his point is literal and figurative. Even when you cut something off and consider it to be dead, it never really leaves you. Sirius has been living in this court of denial, repressing those ages of darkness. He has experienced something so powerful as the grip of his family and it has corrupted him in such a way that no amount can cheer. Ignoring it is perhaps the only solution to the constant problem.

So as they return to the warmth of the restaurant, Sirius smiles as if nothing is wrong. And perhaps it isn't in his mind, and that's the way it should be. The only way it can be. Sirius is a man of dead ends that Remus doesn't wish to painfully point out because he'd miss him too sorely if he estranged him. But as he slides into the seat beside Lilly, another thought occurs to him.

Who had Sirius been talking to? There had been nearly a thousand women in his life, and none had affected him so. But Remus knew Padfoot had led lives he'd kept from them all, secrets all bottled up inside. The Black Enigma, Remus reasoned, because taking a trip into Sirius's mindset would leave one rattled. So who could tap onto a nerve as this woman had? Upon thinking about it, Moony decided it must just be that simple: a ghost.

* * *

**Author's note: **right. AHHH. this royally sucked. mui grande apologies. yeah i don't take spanish, so that's prolly not right. but anyway, it was very... ugh. lol it sounds like an essay. ewww. yeah, i sound really mature right aobut now but hey, it's christmas break. screw formalities. anyway, back on the story, i just had a blackfic moment and this is just kindof a filler, me guesses. arr. sorry for this. um, time? set... er, post hogwarts, before october of course. and the girl i wrote about affecting messr. padfoot was dear bella, but anyone would fit. even his mum. just put your most detested black girl into it and : viola. but bella and sirius have that chemistry that (if you've read any of my blackfics) you know i love.

lesigh, so don't be insanely hurtful with reviews, and my other blackfics are loads better than this, so read them! 


End file.
